128 MEXICO. 
digested the following description. Involved as almost all antiquarian 
researches are in obscuiity, and free as those who engage in tliem are to 
mix up their fancies and theories with the slightest facts upon which they 
can found a hypothesis, I confess that 1 do not rely entirely upon the 
surmises of the writers I have cited. Yet they are the only persons who 
have hitherto attempted to unravel the mystery, and I am therefore obliged 
either to present their conjectures or none. 
The large head in the centre, with a protruding tongue, is said to repre- 
sent the sun ; while the triangular figures marked with the letter R, and 
the other figures marked with the letter L, denote the larger and lesser 
rays with which the Indians surrounded that luminary. 
Around this central sun are four squares, denoted by A, B, C, D, 
which, together with the circular figures E F at the sides of the triangle, 
I, at the top, and the character H at the bottom, combined, (according to 
De Gama,) to form the symbol of the sun's movement — or perhaps the 
symbols of the four weeks into which the month was divided. 
The hieroglyphs denoted by the numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5z;c. up to 20, 
are the days of the month, and the rest of the figures around the zone are 
somewhat fancifully said to represent the milky way known to the an- 
cients by the name of Citlalinycue. By an equal stretch of the imagina- 
tion, the waving lines, marked V, are supposed to indicate the clouds, 
which were venerated as gods called Almaque, the inseparable com- 
panions of Tlaloc De Gama thinks that the small squares at e are 
symbols of the mountains where the clouds are formed. Such are the 
satisfactory conjectures of antiquarians ! 
Gnomons were placed in the holes at X, Z, PP, QQ, «nd YY ; the 
stone was then set up vertically due east and west, with its carved face 
to the south, and by means of threads stretched from the tops of the gno- 
mons and the shadows they cast on the surface of the stone, the seasons 
of the year, and the periods of the day, were determined with astronomi- 
cal accuracy. 
******* 
* * * * * * * . 
Various other carved stones intended for astronomical purposes, have 
been discovered at different times throughout the Valley of Mexico and 
its neighborhood. De Gama relates, that " in the year 1775, while labor- 
ers were excavating at the hill of Chalpultepec, they laid bare a cluster 
of curiously sculptured rocks, which, after a careful examination, he 
believed had once formed a portion of the system by which the Mexicans 
determined the exact periods of sunrise and sunset at the equinoxes, and 
regulated the time during the remainder of the 5/ ear." But when he 
returned to the hill for the purpose of further investigation, he found these 
rocks and all their carving had been destroyed oy the ignorant excavators, 
